Day 10, Sunday 1st July 07, Platja d'Aro to Andorra 177.2 Miles (Total so far 1249.5 miles)

After 5 days of not being on the bike it was now time to start the first day of our return journey home, we took a longer route back so we could visit Andorra, a tiny country of about 20 or so miles long on the Spanish / French border. This was the start of our next adventure, somehow it didn't seem so exciting in respect of you knowing you are now on your way home. It was a very hot and sunny morning, I was sweating by the bucket full loading the bike up ready to set off, and thinking how hot it was going to be in all the bike gear. We rode to the other side of town in Platja D'Aro to fill up with petrol, I was a bit concerned as I've heard so may stories of petrol stations being shut on Sundays, I crammed as much fuel as I could into the tank, I knew it would be a long day but being only 180miles I knew if there was not a petrol station open for the whole journey I could make it on a tank full fairly easily if I took it steady. (incidentally I was in Wales UK earlier in the year one bank holiday and it took us over 120 miles to find a petrol station open!!).  We now prepared, fully loaded and a full tank of juice (petrol). We made our way across to the AP-7 motorway heading "south west" towards Barcelona We didn't get too far inland before we started to see some black clouds only about 40 miles or so, we stopped at the services on the AP-7 motorway for a drink as it was hot, I also refuelled the bike (just in case!!). we carried on down the AP-7 until the C-58 intersection, were we joined the C-58 taking us back up in a Northerly direction. We were now starting to hit some rocky mountain terrain, Clouds were starting to get thicker, the air smelt fresher and at time you could even smell rain, we stayed on C-58 until 10 miles or so later it merged with the C-16/E-09. The views were getting good, but the weather was changing from sun to showers. we stopped at the "area de Montserrat" the back end of the mountain were the Montserrat Monastery is, although you couldn't actually see the monastery itself from here. carrying on along the E-09 you really are starting to get out in the wilds, away from the big towns and into more remote villages, the landscape more mountainous and picturesque. Passing North a small town called Berga along the E-09 we go through a series of small tunnels then on our right approaching Cercs there is a river unlike anything we'd seen before, clear bright green coloured we stopped at a petrol station "Petromiralles" a couple of miles north of Cercs on the C16E-09 to take some photos.
Having Refuelled the bike and ourselves with a with a good drink of pop & Dark Dog (like Red Bull but better!) energy drinks, these energy drinks are a god send for keeping you awake on long days, the time was now just after 13:30 weather had been warm but rain showers earlier, but now it was warming up quite a bit, even though it was still quite cloudy, the temperature was 31°c!!
 { Interesting note while travelling on the C16/E-09 is there was a lot of construction work on building/replacing the old C16, at one point we were on a brand new section of the C16 and the sat nav was throwing a wobbler because the old section of the C16 was a few hundred yards to our left, sat nav showing us off road for quite a few miles!! we did eventually rejoin the original C16/E-09 and all was ok, it was the first time in the whole trip the sat nav route had faltered (so far, a-hem!). }
Continuing north on the E-09 we enter another tunnel (Tunel del Cadi), this one seemed to be a long tunnel once we were in it, on and on it went...and on and on... and on and on..... for around 4 miles inside a tunnel!! and then a toll at the end of it. After leaving the tunnel within 3 miles we then merge with the N260 heading west, its a nice winding road, on parts of the road you can see the real old extremely sharp corners that have taken out to make the road less dangerous. we stay on the N260 for several miles until we meet up with the N145, the road to Andorra which is only 6 or 7 miles away, at this sort of area the building change style, more ski chalet type buildings (well, it is a skiing resort territory!!) one particular village we passed through was stunning (sorry, cant remember the name of the place for the life of me, and didn't write it down in my log of the trip!) you could even imagine them covered in snow and how xmas card looking they must be in the ski season.

We enter the border of Andorra, customs security is tight going out into Spain virtually pulling everyone over, but pretty relaxed going in. we are soon into the capital Andorra la vella, again another recent road building program alters the route through the city and the sat nav going mad at us telling us to go the old route which does not exist, well, it does but blocked off each end now with the new route going straight thru the middle of it, so we take the new route thru the city (big town really). I could not believe just how many petrol stations there are in Andorra, at least 3 every 100yards and I'm not kidding you either, then I clicked why there are so many, Andorra has little or no taxes so it is pure profit for the oil companies, the petrol is cheaper there but considering its tax free it was not as cheap as it could be. Our hotel, Hotel Ibis was above a car dealership, and had underground garage parking, bonus! we got there around 4pm. within an hour it started to rain quite heavy, so a bit of good timing and the bike dry in the garage.

Day 11, Monday 2nd July 07,  Andorra to Limoges, France 299.2 Miles (Total so far 1548.5 miles)
Today we had got 300 miles to travel, over a ⅓ of today's route on mountain roads, we set off around 9:45am and stopping to refuel the bike at one of the hundreds of petrol stations in Andorra temperature was just over 28°c. Within seconds of getting out of the main town the mountains came into full view, tops of the peaks covered with clouds, it was stunning, as usual with my photographic skills (or lack of them!!) they don't turn out like you hoped they would (left), it's one of those places you really have to be there to appreciate, words can not describe just how stunning Andorra is heading out towards the French border on the CG-2. We start our accent up in the mountains for several miles, yet still appeared to be quite low as we looked at the mountains in the near distance. The air smelt fresh and clean, the temperature had started to drop as we were getting higher up, it was now 18°c but still nice, blue skies and fluffy white clouds. We pulled up at a set of traffic lights and a German biker pulled up at the side of us, he warned us of a long tunnel ahead, from what I thought he said, he told us not to wear glasses and have our visor up going through the tunnel or you won't see anything, I had experienced fogging up before going through a tunnel somewhere, so I never gave it a second thought as I knew that could happen. After a few miles we reach the tunnel on the border with france, I wanted to take the mountain pass but knowing I was pushed for time today ( it had already taken us ¾ of an hour to do around 15 miles or so on the uphill mountain climb and sight seeing), so as a safe bet we took the "tunel d'Envalira" quicker route option. The tunnel was 2 miles long, approaching the end of the tunnel we saw a bright white light coming towards us then we entered the bright white light.... hold on a minute... everything around us was now white....but now we couldn't see a bloody thing!! talk about a near death experience with tunnels and white lights at the end of it and all that!!, I slammed on the brakes and stopped, shouting "where the F(BLEEEEP!!!!) hell's the F(bleeep!!) road gone????"  I could just about see the sat nav in front of us showing a straight road in front of us approaching a roundabout, I looked up and saw absolutely "F" all not even the road in front of us. Nothing on this earth would ever prepared me for what had just happened (remember the German biker earlier? I should have listened better as to what he meant!!) we had come out the tunnel into really thick dense cloud, How the bloody hell you go into the tunnel one end in glorious sunshine and come out 2 miles later into gates of heaven blinded by white light and no vision 3 feet in front of you is beyond my tiny little mortal mind!! I kid you not, I had to rely on the sat nav to see where we were going the visibility was that bad for the first 500yards, the temperature had plummeted even further, my thermometer showing 11.2°c, We started to descend down to mountainside passing through the French border control on the N22, no one was being stopped, probably because they couldn't see anybody coming until they had gone past!! we went down hill for several miles in the clouds lower we got the slightly better the visibility got. We did eventually reach the bottom of the cloud, Shame really as we must have missed some stunning views. The road was twisty on the N22 and N320 and onto N20, proper mountain road just as I had imagined it to be, This is what motorcycling is all about for me, I was in my elements, around 20 miles of downhill decent, before we hit the bottom. We passed through many small picturesque villages, unspoilt and away from mass tourism even though I would have thought it was a route millions of tourist would pass through, places you would class as "real France". At times I wish I had stopped to take more photo's, but the mountain section had taken a lot of time up, literally 4 hrs to do nearly 100 miles if I remember right, and we still had 200 miles or so to go today.  The N20 turned into a dual carriage way and we started to make good times, We then joined the A66 toll motorway merging onto the A61 towards and around east of Toulouse then joining the A62 and then onto the A20 towards Limoges. The A20 runs 70 or 80 or so miles west of the A75, surprisingly not as much to see, the A75 was by far the better of the 2 motorways. Travelling up the A20 with more normal scenery made you realise you were heading home. We arrived in Limoges "Novotel" around 6pm. Novotel is part of the Accor Hotels chain which include Etap and Ibis hotels who we regularly stay with on our trips in France, This particular Novotel was old and run down looking. Very friendly staff, but to be honest I wouldn't recommend the place in general, the restaurant was expensive and probably the worst ever I'd been to the food was absolute rubbish.

A change to the route!
Looking at the weather forecast for the next few days in France, we decided on a change of route due to heavy rain forecasts. From Limoges we had originally planned to head to Hotel Campanile in Villejust just south west of Paris for a night then onto the coast at Le Touquet (nr Boulogne) for a 3 night stay in an Ibis hotel with a sea view room. Looking at the temperatures it was only going to be 14°c and wet! For me being stuck at the coast in the cold and wet is no use to man nor beast. So we decided to re plan the route, instead of heading to the coast we decided to head to Disneyland, Paris . We found a new Ibis hotel in our book of Accor hotels (we carry it just in case) in Val d' Europe, Paris not far away from Disney, Novotel staff booked us in at the Ibis as it was part of their hotel chain and booked us in at an Ibis nr Calais for Friday night before we crossed the Channel Saturday morning.

Day 12, Tuesday 3rd July 07,  Limoges to Disneyland, Paris. 262.6 Miles (Total so far 1811.3 miles)
Today we had got  a shorter day, just over 260 miles to travel, although today's route to Disneyland Paris was 40 miles or so further than Villejust, Paris we had originally planned to go. We woke up early, I looked out of the window and it had just started drizzle with rain, we went down for breakfast and now it had started persistently raining to put it politely!! The bike Had a rain cover over it to keep it dry, I wheeled the bike under the canopy to the main entrance of the hotel to load up the bike ready to go to keep dry. We set off and got back on the A20 heading towards Paris, visibility was very poor, the cloud was low and the rain was coming down like a monsoon. Getting stuck behind traffic and trying to overtake was a nightmare with the road spray on my visor making it impossible to see, as fast as I wiped it off it instantly caked in spray again, as any biker knows, you need to be travelling at good speed for your visor to clear, I found that around 80mph+ the visor kept fairly clear but not good as distance visibility was poor. Today was the worst day since travelling down in England on our first day. Mile after mile the rain came down by the bucket full, we stopped at a few services along the way refuelling and a coffee or two!!
The weather was making it real hard work, it did ease off after 100miles of so and started to brighten up but at the same time the Clouds getting blacker also, some really weird cloud formations, one minute brightening up and the next minute really heavy showers, the weather was extremely unsettled to say the least. I had wrapped the sat nav up in a clear polythene food bag cut up and stickytape'd up, to keep it dry, I was surprised how it kept working with all the rain. As we got nearer to Paris it did stop raining at times, some blue sky but with lots of heavy really black storm clouds and showers which continued all the way to Our Hotel. We Arrived at our Hotel at the Val d'Europe around 4 had a quick shower and thought we'd have a nap for ½ an hour, Just over two hours later we woke up, starving as we had only be having the odd little snack all day. Due to the weather today, we didn't take any photo's
 We decided to take the bus into Disney village to get something to eat, I can't remember the last time I caught a bus, probably about 20 yrs ago going to college when the bike broke down, to say Disney was only a few miles away it took us nearly half an hour to get there going through a maze of a housing estate, I could not believe just how many properties had been built in that area over the last 7 years or so since I first visited the area and as far as we could remember back then it was all fields apart from the Val d'Europe shopping complex, we stayed a while in the Disney village, it is free to get into that part of Disney. We decided to get a taxi back to the hotel, and literally a few minutes drive.

Day 13, Wednesday 4th July 07,  Disneyland, Paris. 0.0 Miles
No Ride outs today, We spent today in Disneyland and Disney Studios with a 2 day parks ticket, we walked it into Disneyland from the hotel, quite a few showers today but didn't really spoil it for us, we did get soaked walking back to the hotel later that day.

Day 14, Thursday 5th July 07, Disneyland, Paris. 4.5 Miles (Total so far 1815.8 miles)
Not a actual leg of the trip. Today I wanted to take the bike up to Disneyland to get a few photo's of the bike and our second day in the Disney parks.


Day 15, Friday 6th July 07, Disneyland, Paris to Coquelles (Calais). 193.3 Miles (Total so far 2009.1 miles)
Last day of the ride through France, we had had a good last couple of days in Disney, now it was time to head up to Calais, The further north we got the windier it became. Nothing really exciting about today. We did see a German Biker for quite a way heading up to Calais. He rode like a nutter overtaking and then swerving straight in front of whatever he had just overtaken, and was getting it really low to the point of looking like his time was up on several occasions.

 

Day 16, Friday 7th July 07, Coquelles (Calais) to Derbyshire UK. 222.6 Miles (Grand Total of 2231.7 miles)

 Nothing much to say about the ride back in the UK, we crossed the channel tunnel early, Travelling up the M20 near maidstone, and who did we see on the hard shoulder looking at his map? it was the nutter German biker. That was the last we saw of him.
 It was one of those days you didn't want to go, as you knew you are on your way home and reflecting on the past 2 weeks of our epic journey, although feeling down about heading home I was feeling quite proud of what I had achieved, Something I had wanted to do for quite a lot of years and always had been a pipe dream, I had even failed the trip last year on the first attempt due to a breakdown. Ok the trip to most people may be nothing, some not even interested, but to us a trip of a lifetime, it makes you realise places aren't as far away as they sound. One great big adventure in a small world!

The End (for now!)

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